As Trump Eyes Chicago Takeover, Progressives Say 'We Must Fight Back'

Progressive voices and Democratic leaders this week are letting it be known they will not take President Donald Trump's threat to target the city of Chicago for his next federal takeover and deployment of federal troops lying down.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson on Monday, alongside Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and US Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), held a press conference to let Trump know that Chicago residents want no part of his plan to deploy the military into their city.

"The last thing that Chicagoans want is someone from the outside of our city, who doesn't know our city, trying to dictate and tell us what our city needs," said Johnson. "As the mayor of this city, I can tell you that Chicagoans are not calling for military occupation."

Pritzker, meanwhile, bluntly warned Trump against sending troops to his state's largest city.

"This is not about fighting crime," Pritzker said of Trump's plans to deploy the military in Chicago. "This is about Donald Trump searching for any justification to deploy the military in a blue city, in a blue state, to try and intimidate his political rivals."

Illinois politicians weren't the only ones who are vowing to resist Trump's designs on Chicago, as Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) warned that the president had ambitions to deploy troops to all major American cities.

"First it was LA, then DC, and now Chicago," she wrote in a social media post Tuesday. "None of us are safe from Trump's authoritarian rule. We must fight back against this takeover of our cities."

Progressive organization Our Revolution, has started circulating a petition demanding that Congress vote against any Trump request to extend his control over the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department beyond the legally allowed period of 30 days.

Progressives' vows of defiance come as The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting new details about Trump's designs on the Windy City. According to the paper, the administration is planning to use a suburban naval base just outside the city to house federal immigration officials and potentially National Guard troops starting in September.

An email sent this week by US Navy Cpt. Stephen Yargosz obtained by The Chicago Sun-Times claimed that the deployment will be focused on "downtown Chicago," despite the fact that the downtown area is not where most violent crimes in the city occur.

Yargosz also said in his email that there are "not many details" right now about deploying the National Guard in Chicago, but "mainly a lot of concerns and questions."

The Chicago Sun-Times report also noted that all of these plans are being done without any input from or consultation with local officials, who have said that they are completely in the dark about what the president is plotting.